Xcel Energy awards ActiveLED customer Spradley Barr with Lighting Efficiency Achievement Award

Xcel Energy Inc. (NYSE: XEL) honored Spradley Barr Ford of Greeley as well as Leprino Foods and King Soopers for their “outstanding” efforts to save energy.

The utility recognized a dozen commercial, industrial and small business customers statewide for participating in Xcel’s energy efficiency programs last year.

The companies lowered their energy costs and reduced environmental impacts, Xcel said. Altogether, they saved more than 49 million kilowatt-hours of electricity in a 12-month period. That means the businesses avoided producing more than 28,000 tons of carbon dioxide, similar to keeping more than 7,100 cars off the road for a year.

Xcel offered incentives, such as rebates and funding for energy efficiency studies, to commercial and municipal customers to encourage them to make energy-efficient choices. The companies recognized chose more efficient equipment and processes for their facilities.

Chinese Investment Consortium to Purchase Majority Interest in Philips’ Lumiled LED Components and Automotive Lighting Businesses

Chinese Investment Consortium to Purchase Majority Interest in Philips’ Combined LED Components and Automotive Lighting Businesses

on April 1, 2015 in LED/Lighting Business News, Lighting Companies – SSL Design

Royal Philips (Philips) announced that a consortium led by GO Scale Capital has agreed to purchase 80.1% of its combined LED components and automotive lighting business. Philips will retain the remaining 19.9% and will receive about USD $2.8 billion in compensation for the transaction before taxes and transaction costs. Philips expects to get an additional differed contingent payment of USD $100 million. The transaction’s completion is scheduled for the third quarter of 2015, subject to regulatory approvals and certain closing conditions.

The new company will continue operating under the name Lumileds. The CEO of Philips’ Lighting Solutions business Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre will head the company.  Philips’ Lighting Solutions business will continue operation and will remain an important customer of Lumileds. Lumileds will continue to act as a supply partner for Philips’ Lighting Solutions business.

“Philips is very positive about this transaction with GO Scale Capital as its principals are long-term, growth-oriented investors with a track record of building and expanding technology companies,” said Frans van Houten, CEO of Royal Philips. “We have significantly improved the performance of the LED components business and optimized the industrial footprint in the Automotive lighting business over the last few years, and established a strong management team and innovation pipeline. We are therefore convinced that together with GO Scale Capital, Lumileds can grow further, attract more customers and increase scale as a stand-alone company.”

Oak Investment Partners and GSR Ventures have sponsored the new investment fund GO Scale Capital. The consortium partners are GSR Capital, Asia Pacific Resource Development, and Nanchang Industrial Group. The GO Scale Capital team reportedly has a track record in scaling up disruptive technologies.  The consortium partners have access to complementary technologies and manufacturing capacity through their past LED industry investments.

Sonny Wu, chairman of GO Scale Capital and co-founder and managing director of GSR Ventures, who will serve as interim chairman of Lumileds following the transaction’s completion stated, “The Lumileds acquisition will be a perfect example of how GO Scale turns cutting edge technologies into world class companies. GO Scale Capital will focus on expanding Lumileds’ opportunities by investing in its global centers of operation and in the fast growing general lighting and automotive industries. Through Lumileds’ world-leading technology in key verticals such as LED chips, LED mobile flash and automotive lighting, together with a customer base including the likes of BMW, Volkswagen and Audi, we expect to see significant growth and unparalleled inroads into new opportunities such as electric vehicles.”

“I am convinced that together with the new investors led by GO Scale Capital, Lumileds will extend its leading product portfolio of lighting components and continue to achieve robust growth,” said Pierre-Yves Lesaicherre, CEO of Lumileds.“With our strong technology leadership, we are ready to address the future needs of our customers. We will work closely with our industry partners and customers to lead innovation and the transformation of our industry.”

As announced in September 2014, Philips has started the process of creating two companies focused on Lighting Solutions and HealthTech. Philips plans to transition the Lighting Solutions business into a separate legal structure. Currently, Philips intends to separate the two businesses through an initial public offering, although Philips will continue to review other options.

Ringdale Announces ActiveLED® 10-Year Performance Warranty, Industry's Only Warranty That Includes Protection Against Light Loss

ActiveLED Customer Installations Maintain Original Light Levels Five Years Later

PR Newswire

GEORGETOWN, Texas, March 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Ringdale®, Inc., Texas-based manufacturer of USA-made ActiveLED® luminaries, announced its unprecedented Performance Warranty, also dubbed the No Light Loss Warranty. ActiveLED fixtures carry a 10-year guarantee that the lights will not only function, but will not lose light levels or change color for 10 years.

Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150313/181602LOGO
Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150313/181603

The ActiveLED product­—with its overall design that includes patents in LED phosphor, LED cooling, and LED driver technology—addresses issues that typically cause lights to fail. "At Ringdale, we've been revolutionizing solid-state technology for over 30 years. We focus on manufacturing fixtures as a whole, including all of the internal components, and this results in better, longer-lasting lighting for companies. This warranty is a testimony to our robust design and one that no other manufacturer in the industry has achieved," saidKlaus Bollmann, president of Ringdale and inventor of ActiveLED.

The No Light Loss Performance Warranty supports Ringdale's driving principle of delivering sustainable products made to be durable and long-lasting, thus breaking free of the consumption lighting model. The lights are guaranteed to deliver 90,000 light hours for maintenance-free performance.

Thermal management is a leading contributor to LED failure. ActiveLED uses superior heat sink designs and patented heat transfer technology to dissipate heat and minimize junction temperature. Keeping the junction temperature low allows fixtures to run cooler, last longer, and not depreciate. The product line's outdoor fixtures operate with full light output within a temperature range of -55°C (-67°F) to +55°C (+131°F) while indoor fixtures operate without light loss and within a temperature range of -40°C (-40°F) to +45°C (+113°F). Additionally, ActiveLED fixtures have an expected life under these respective conditions of more than 200,000 hours.   

Ringdale has been offering this unparalleled assurance to customers since 2008. "When we initially started the dialog of ActiveLED providing droop-free lighting, many felt it was another unwarranted claim," explained Bollmann. "But after five years of delivering lighting that has experienced no light loss—five years during which hundreds of customers have enjoyed durable, long lasting performance—we felt now was the right time to make a formal announcement. Our proof points are the successful installations performing in some of the harshest climates and the most demanding environments."

The Performance Warranty covers every ActiveLED fixture in a portfolio of over 200 commercial-grade luminaries for interior and exterior applications, such as streets, parking structures, building exteriors, warehouses, offices, retail spaces, sports lighting, restaurants and architectural accents.

About Ringdale

Ringdale, established in 1986, focuses on helping organizations incorporate green savings into their business environments. Ringdale, an innovator of solid-state technology and manufacturer of commercial LED lighting fixtures, provides ActiveLED® luminaries with patented, solid-state lighting control and thermal management technology. Ringdale, Inc. is based in the United States with offices in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and Singapore and is part of the Network Technology PLC Group of Companies.

Visit: www.SolarLEDAlliance.com

Bad LED lighting shows in surprising places

ForceField Energy's ESCO Energy Services subsidiary has announced that it anticipates receiving the first LED street light conversion orders under the Municipal Street Light Conversion Program. In a five-year partnership with the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM), the energy services company (ESCO) will enable municipalities to both purchase existing utility-owned street lights and convert those poles to LED-based fixtures.

The generic ESCO model for solid-state lighting (SSL) street light projects has emerged over the past several years in which an ESCO will fund a retrofit project with the municipality paying for the conversion over time via savings in electricity and maintenance. For example, Chevron Energy Solutions worked with LED and SSL module manufacturer Bridgelux on a retrofit program. More recently, Ameresco funded a major SSL retrofit project at the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport (MSP).

Still, the ESCO Energy Services program goes beyond the typical retrofit project because it will allow municipalities that don’t own their street light inventory to purchase those lights from the local utility. Moreover, the offer includes the option to install networked controls and the management software and tools needed to manage the inventory both in terms of maintenance operations and in dimming the lights when appropriate for maximum energy savings.

"With a strong footprint across North America and diverse capabilities including comprehensive multi-site installations, real-time energy monitoring and analytics, and networked smart street light management systems, we are well positioned to penetrate the multi-billion LED street light market," said Richard St-Julien, ForceField Energy's executive chairman. The company says that it will future-proof the street light inventory for municipalities.

ESCO Energy Services said it is in negotiations with 20 of the 153 municipalities that comprise the CCM membership and believes the projects will commence in the second quarter. The company projects the potential to close to $25-$30 million in CCM LED street light projects during the next five years.

"We believe our ability to offer and deliver a comprehensive and fully integrated street light acquisition and LED conversion program that incorporates an array of financing options will set us apart in that growing vertical," said Mitch Barack, ESCO president and CEO. "As part of our program delivery, we also provide zero-landfill recycling of the old street light fixtures. Certificates of Recycling will be provided for all street lights received and processed. The zero-landfill recycling program actually pays the municipality for the value of the recyclable products we recover. This provides additional value in terms of contributing to the town's sustainability efforts and an added advantage of the ESCO comprehensive offering."

By Maury Wright
Editor in Chief, LEDs Magazine and Illumination in Focus

City of the future sinks into the ocean

Japanese firm devises plan for an Ocean Spiral community that descends nine miles to the seabed

An artist impression of the modern-day Atlantis Photo: Shimizu Corp/AFP/Getty Images

By Julian Ryall, Tokyo

6:33AM GMT 21 Nov 2014

With dry land increasingly at a premium, a Japanese construction company has come up with a plan to sink a spiralling city into the depths of our oceans.

Each Ocean Spiral will be home to about 5,000 people, according to Shimizu Corp., with each structure also incorporating business and office facilities, hotel and entertainment facilities.

A blueprint for the city of the future was unveiled in Tokyo this week, with Shimizu confidently predicting that the first of its underwater cities would be ready for residents to move in as early as 2030.

At the surface, the city will have a vast floating dome that could be made watertight and retracted beneath the surface in bad weather.

Beneath the dome, the spiral structure would descend as much as 9 miles to the seabed, where an "earth factory" would produce methane from carbon dioxide by using micro-organisms, the company said.

The seabed could also be mined for rare earth minerals and metals.

Generators would create power by taking advantage of the difference in the temperature of sea water at varying depths, while undersea docking facilities would enable supplies to be delivered and research to be conducted.

Shimizu plans to build the Ocean Spiral from resin instead of concrete and to use industrial-scale three-dimensional printers to create the components.

The cost of developing the first undersea city has been estimated at 3 trillion yen (£16.24 billion), although the company says that subsequent versions will be significantly cheaper.

^{An artist impression of the modern-day Atlantis (Shimizu Corp)}

Shimizu has been working on the project with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and Tokyo University and believes it will take five years to build the first unit.

Shimizu has a reputation for blue-sky thinking in a country in which construction firms are traditionally conservative in their approaches to projects.

Previously, Shimizu has proposed creating a 250-mile wide "belt" of solar panels around the Moon that would gather and relay a constant supply of energy to "receiving stations" on Earth by way of lasers or microwave transmission.

Another plan is to build vast floating islands for the shrinking atoll nations of the Pacific, such as Kiribati.

Sistine chapel dazzles after technological makeover

Michelangelo's famous frescoes at the Vatican's Sistine Chapel have been brought into sharp relief by 7,000 LED lamps designed specifically for the prized chapel.

A journalist at the Sistine Chapel with its new lighting during a press visit at the Vatican on Oct 29, 2014. (AFP/Filippo Monteforte/Musei Vaticani)

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VATICAN CITY: High above the altar in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, the halo around Jesus Christ's head in Michelangelo's famous frescoes shines with a brighter glow, thanks to a revolutionary new lighting system.

Angels, Sybils and prophets in blues, pinks and golds, once lost in the gloom, are brought into sharp relief by 7,000 LED lamps designed specifically for the prized chapel, where red-hatted cardinals have elected new popes since the 15th century. A state of the art ventilation system has also been installed to protect the frescoes from humidity, enabling up to 2,000 people at a time to visit one of the world's top tourist attractions, which draws over six million people a year.

The venture cost some €1.9 billion (US$2.3 billion), with €870,000 provided by the European Union and the rest donated to the Vatican in expertise, technology and man hours by the various companies taking part in the LED4ART project. "The LEDs have a colour spectrum specifically designed with the pigmentation of the frescos in mind to ensure the light faithfully reflects the original colours, as the artists intended," said Marco Frascarolo, who works for Fabertechnica, one of the companies behind the new system.

Journalists stare at the Sistine Chapel with its new lighting. (AFP/Filippo Monteforte/Musei Vaticani)

"As each LED can be tuned to a different colour, we spent long nights in the chapel with the Vatican Museum curators, trying out different mixes of red, blues, whites ... trying to get it just right," he said during a private tour for journalists of the chapel late Wednesday (Oct 29) .

While eight colour samples are usually taken in an environment to create a LED system, 276 areas of the Renaissance paintings were analysed, he said. The sunlight which had streamed through the windows for centuries was shut out in the 1980s, when conservators realised ultraviolet radiation was damaging the masterpieces, causing the Last Judgement and other frescoes which cover the chapel's ceiling and walls to fade.

The lighting system put in place at the time was criticised for casting an unnatural glow and throwing some of the lesser known works by artists such as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino into shadow.

A WHOLE NEW LIGHT

"The LEDs create a much better viewing experience because they throw light on aspects of the frescoes which were overlooked before," Frascarolo said. The lights were vigorously tested to make sure they wouldn't damage the works, with pigments of the frescoes subjected to the LEDs in a laboratory at a high intensity which showed what effect the new system would have over 50 years.

Protecting the artworks was also the driving factor behind the new ventilation system, installed by US firm Carrier, which uses three cameras to monitor the number of people in the chapel and regulate the temperature and humidity. "The previous system was only capable of regulating the air for up to 700 people. With this system the room can hold a maximum of 2,000 people without damaging the artworks," said Michel Grabon, director of Carrier's AdvanTE3C Solutions Center.

"We know the amount of CO2 and humidity released by each visitor and can make adjustments accordingly, lowering the temperature or raising it if necessary to compensate for cold spells," he said, adding that he can monitor the chapel from his home computer or mobile phone. Both systems are also highly energy efficient, meaning the Vatican is expected to cut output for ventilation by around 60 per cent and by up to 90 percent for the lights - shaving a vast amount off its bills.

Antonio Paolucci, the director of the Vatican Museums, said the chapel "contains the most extraordinary works ever conceived by the human mind" and the new installations aimed to honour the 450th anniversary of the artist's death by preserving and re-illuminating his creations.

The Museums said they were also exploring a project for next year whereby visitors craning their necks to see the famous depiction of Adam and God reaching towards each other to touch fingers could be given disposable "intelligent glasses" like Google Glass for a whole new 3D-view.

New light to illuminate the world

This year’s Nobel Laureates are rewarded for having invented a new energy-efficient and environment-friendly light source – the blue light-emitting diode (LED). In the spirit of Alfred Nobel the Prize rewards an invention of greatest benefit to mankind; using blue LEDs, white light can be created in a new way. With the advent of LED lamps we now have more long-lasting and more efficient alternatives to older light sources.

When Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura produced bright blue light beams from their semi-conductors in the early 1990s, they triggered a funda-mental transformation of lighting technology. Red and green diodes had been around for a long time but without blue light, white lamps could not be created. Despite considerable efforts, both in the scientific community and in industry, the blue LED had remained a challenge for three decades.

They succeeded where everyone else had failed. Akasaki worked together with Amano at the University of Nagoya, while Nakamura was employed at Nichia Chemicals, a small company in Tokushima. Their inventions were revolutionary. Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps.

White LED lamps emit a bright white light, are long-lasting and energy-efficient. They are constantly improved, getting more efficient with higher luminous flux (measured in lumen) per unit electrical input power (measured in watt). The most recent record is just over 300 lm/W, which can be compared to 16 for regular light bulbs and close to 70 for fluorescent lamps. As about one fourth of world electricity consumption is used for lighting purposes, the LEDs contribute to saving the Earth’s resources. Materials consumption is also diminished as LEDs last up to 100,000 hours, compared to 1,000 for incandescent bulbs and 10,000 hours for fluorescent lights.

The LED lamp holds great promise for increasing the quality of life for over 1.5 billion people around the world who lack access to electricity grids: due to low power requirements it can be powered by cheap local solar power.

The invention of the blue LED is just twenty years old, but it has already contributed to create white light in an entirely new manner to the benefit of us all.